Life in the lithosphere, kinetics and the prospects for life elsewhere

The global contiguity of life on the Earth today is a result of the high flux of carbon and oxygen from oxygenic photosynthesis over the planetary surface and its use in aerobic respiration. Life's ability to directly use redox couples from components of the planetary lithosphere in a pre-oxygenic photosynthetic world can be investigated by studying the distribution of organisms that use energy sources normally bound within rocks, such as iron. Microbiological data from Iceland and the deep oceans show the kinetic limitations of living directly off igneous rocks in the lithosphere. Using energy directly extracted from rocks the lithosphere will support about six orders of magnitude less productivity than the present-day Earth, and it would be highly localized. Paradoxically, the biologically extreme conditions of the interior of a planet and the inimical conditions of outer space, between which life is trapped, are the locations from which volcanism and impact events, respectively, originate. These processes facilitate the release of redox couples from the planetary lithosphere and might enable it to achieve planetary-scale productivity approximately one to two orders of magnitude lower than that produced by oxygenic photosynthesis. The significance of the detection of extra-terrestrial life is that it will allow us to test these observations elsewhere and establish an understanding of universal relationships between lithospheres and life. These data also show that the search for extra-terrestrial life must be accomplished by 'following the kinetics', which is different from following the water or energy.     

Life sciences issues affecting space exploration

The U.S. space program is undertaking a serious examination of new initiatives in human space exploration involving permanent colonies on the Moon and an outpost on Mars. Life scientists have major responsibilities to the crew, to assure their health, productivity, and safety throughout the mission and the postflight rehabilitation period; to the mission, to provide a productive working environment; and to the scientific community, to advance knowledge and understanding of human adaptation to the space environment. Critical areas essential to the support of human exploration include protection from the radiation hazards of the space environment, reduced gravity countermeasures, artificial gravity, medical care, life support systems, and behavior, performance, and human factors in an extraterrestrial environment. Developing solutions to these concerns is at the heart of the NASA Life Sciences ground-based and flight research programs. Facilities analogous to planetary outposts are being considered in Antarctica and other remote settings. Closed ecological life support systems will be tested on Earth and Space Station. For short-duration simulations and tests, the Space Shuttle and Spacelab will be used. Space Station Freedom will provide the essential scientific and technological research in areas that require long exposures to reduced gravity conditions. In preparation for Mars missions, research on the Moon will be vital. As the challenges of sustaining humans on space are resolved, advances in fundamental science, medicine and technology will follow.     

Grand challenges in space synthetic biology

Space synthetic biology is a branch of biotechnology dedicated to engineering biological systems for space exploration, industry and science. There is significant public and private interest in designing robust and reliable organisms that can assist on long-duration astronaut missions. Recent work has also demonstrated that such synthetic biology is a feasible payload minimization and life support approach as well. This article identifies the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the field of space synthetic biology, while highlighting relevant progress. It also outlines anticipated broader benefits from this field, because space engineering advances will drive technological innovation on Earth.     

Facilities for Simulation of Microgravity in the ESA Ground-Based Facility Programme

Knowledge of the role of gravity in fundamental biological processes and, consequently, the impact of exposure to microgravity conditions provide insight into the basics of the development of life as well as enabling long-term space exploration missions. However, experimentation in real microgravity is expensive and scarcely available; thus, a variety of platforms have been developed to provide, on Earth, an experimental condition comparable to real microgravity. With the aim of simulating microgravity conditions, different ground-based facilities (GBF) have been constructed such as clinostats and random positioning machines as well as magnets for magnetic levitation. Here, we give an overview of ground-based facilities for the simulation of microgravity which were used in the frame of an ESA ground-based research programme dedicated to providing scientists access to these experimental capabilities in order to prepare their space experiments.     

European Contribution to Human Aspect Investigations for Future Planetary Habitat Definition Studies: Field Tests at MDRS on Crew Time Utilisation and Habitat Interfaces

Human factors are a dominant aspect in space missions, which may strongly influence work results and efficiency. To assess their impact on future long term space missions and to attempt a general quantification, the environmental and technical conditions to which astronauts may be confronted need to be reproduced as closely as possible. Among the stressors that occur during space missions, limited resources, limited social interactions, long term living and working in confined and isolated areas are among the most important for future planetary exploration. The European Space Agency (ESA) has a strong interest in obtaining data and insights in human aspects to prepare for future studies on the definition of future Lunar and Martian planetary habitats. In this frame, ESA’s Directorate of Human Space Flight was associated to the EuroGeoMars campaign conducted by the Crews 76 and 77 in February 2009 in The Mars Society’s ‘Mars Desert Research Station’ (MDRS) in the Desert of Utah. The EuroGeoMars Campaign lasted 5 weeks and encompassed two groups of experiments, on human crew related aspects and field experiments in geology, biology and astronomy/astrophysics. The human crew related aspects covered (1) crew time organization in a planetary habitat, (2) an evaluation of the different functions and interfaces of this habitat, (3) an evaluation of man–machine interfaces of science and technical equipment. Several forms and questionnaires were filled in by all crew members: time and location evaluation sheets and two series of questionnaires. In addition, the crew participated in another on-going food study where the type of food was imposed and crew impressions were collected via questionnaires. The paper recalls the objectives of the human crew related experiments of the EuroGeoMars project and presents the first results of these field investigations. Some recommendations and lessons learnt will be presented and used as first inputs for future planetary habitat definition studies.     

Design and test of an electronic nose for monitoring the air quality in the international space station

Long-term manned space missions requires a continuous monitoring of the air quality inside the spacecraft. For this scope, among several different solutions, electronic noses have been considered. On behalf of European Space Agency an electronic nose specifically designed for air quality control in closed environment is under development. After several ground experiments concerning the monitoring of a biofilter efficiency, the instrument has been tested during the ENEIDE mission on board of the International Space Station. in this paper the instrument main concepts and its performance in ground and space experiments are illustrated.     

Remote automated multi-generational growth and observation of an animal in low Earth orbit

The ultimate survival of humanity is dependent upon colonization of other planetary bodies. Key challenges to such habitation are (patho)physiologic changes induced by known, and unknown, factors associated with long-duration and distance space exploration. However, we currently lack biological models for detecting and studying these changes. Here, we use a remote automated culture system to successfully grow an animal in low Earth orbit for six months. Our observations, over 12 generations, demonstrate that the multi-cellular soil worm Caenorhabditis elegans develops from egg to adulthood and produces progeny with identical timings in space as on the Earth. Additionally, these animals display normal rates of movement when fully fed, comparable declines in movement when starved, and appropriate growth arrest upon starvation and recovery upon re-feeding. These observations establish C. elegans as a biological model that can be used to detect changes in animal growth, development, reproduction and behaviour in response to environmental conditions during long-duration spaceflight. This experimental system is ready to be incorporated on future, unmanned interplanetary missions and could be used to study cost-effectively the effects of such missions on these biological processes and the efficacy of new life support systems and radiation shielding technologies.     

IDR/UPM facilities for liquid bridge experimentation on Earth under microgravity conditions

Besides space laboratories for in-orbit experimentation, Earth based facilities for laboratory experimentation are of paramount importance for the enhancement on liquid bridge knowledge. In spite of the constraints imposed by simulated microgravity (which force to work either with very small size liquid bridges or by using the Plateau tank technique, amongst other techniques), the availability and accessibility of Earth facilities can circumvent in many cases the drawbacks associated with simulated microgravity conditions. To support theoretical and in orbit experimental studies on liquid bridges under reduced gravity conditions, several ground facilities were developed at IDR. In the following these ground facilities are briefly described, and main results obtained by using them are cited.     

The national — esa soyuz missions andromède, marco polo, odissea, cervantes, delta and eneide

From the autumn of 2001 till spring of 2005 a series of six flights to the International Space Station, ISS, were conducted using the Russian Soyuz manned launcher. These flights initially known as ‘taxi-missions’, were characterized by the participation and co-funding from both the European Space Agency, ESA, and the five national delegations from France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. The national participation was reflected both in the flight of a cosmonaut/astronaut, originating from the country co-sponsoring the flight as well as in the origin of the majority of experiments and other activities carried out during these missions. In these six Soyuz missions: Andromède (October 2001), Marco Polo (April 2002), Odissea (October 2002), Cervantes (October 2003), DELTA (April 2004) and Eneide (April 2005), some more than one hundred experiments were carried out. These experiments covered the areas of basic and applied research and technology in biology, human physiology, fluid and plasma physics, material science and Earth observation. Also a significant number of education activities were part of these missions. This paper gives a complete overview of these missions, of all science, education and related activities performed. The perspectives of these activities in the light of the space exploration programs in the XXI century and some of the uncertainties and paradoxes are discussed.     

MIDN: a spacecraft microdosimeter mission

MIDN (MIcroDosimetry iNstrument) is a payload on the MidSTAR-I spacecraft (Midshipman Space Technology Applications Research) under development at the United States Naval Academy. MIDN is a solid-state system being designed and constructed to measure microdosimetric spectra to determine radiation quality factors for space environments. Radiation is a critical threat to the health of astronauts and to the success of missions in low-Earth orbit and space exploration. The system will consist of three separate sensors, one external to the spacecraft, one internal and one embedded in polyethylene. Design goals are mass <3 kg and power <2 W. The MidSTAR-I mission in 2006 will provide an opportunity to evaluate a preliminary version of this system. Its low power and mass makes it useful for the International Space Station and manned and unmanned interplanetary missions as a real-time system to assess and alert astronauts to enhanced radiation environments.     

Review of bubble detector response characteristics and results from space

A passive neutron-bubble dosemeter (BD), developed by Bubble Technology Industries, has been used for space applications. Both the bubble detector-personal neutron dosemeter and bubble detector spectrometer have been studied at ground-based facilities in order to characterise their response due to neutrons, heavy ion particles and protons. This technology was first used during the Canadian-Russian collaboration aboard the Russian satellite BION-9, and subsequently on other space missions, including later BION satellites, the space transportation system, Russian MIR space station and International Space Station. This paper provides an overview of the experiments that have been performed for both ground-based and space studies in an effort to characterise the response of these detectors to various particle types in low earth orbit and presents results from the various space investigations.     

Chemical methods for searching for evidence of extra-terrestrial life

This paper describes the chemical concepts used for the purpose of detecting life in extra-terrestrial situations. These methods, developed initially within the oil industry, have been used to determine when life began on Earth and for investigating the Moon and Mars via space missions. In the case of Mars, the Viking missions led to the realization that we had meteorites from Mars on Earth. The study of Martian meteorites in the laboratory provides tantalizing clues for life on Mars in both the ancient and recent past. Meteorite analyses led to the launch of the Beagle 2 spacecraft, which was designed to prove that life-detection results obtained on Earth were authentic and not confused by terrestrial contamination. Some suggestions are made for future work.     

Astrobiology, space and the future age of discovery

Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the Universe, and specifically seeks to understand the origin of life and to test the hypothesis that life exists elsewhere than on Earth. There is a general mathematics, physics and chemistry; that is, scientific laws that obtain on Earth also do so elsewhere. Is there a general biology? Is the Universe life-rich or is Earth an isolated island of biology? Exploration in the Age of Enlightenment required the collection of data in unexplored regions and the use of induction and empiricism to derive models and natural laws. The current search for extra-terrestrial life has a similar goal, but with a much greater amount of data and with computers to help with management, correlations, pattern recognition and analysis. There are 60 active space missions, many of them aiding in the search for life. There is not a universally accepted definition of life, but there are a series of characteristics that can aid in the identification of life elsewhere. The study of locations on Earth with similarities to early Mars and other space objects could provide a model that can be used in the search for extra-terrestrial life.     

Exoplanets: the quest for Earth twins

Today, more than 400 extra-solar planets have been discovered. They provide strong constraints on the structure and formation mechanisms of planetary systems. Despite this huge amount of data, we still have little information concerning the constraints for extra-terrestrial life, i.e. the frequency of Earth twins in the habitable zone and the distribution of their orbital eccentricities. On the other hand, these latter questions strongly excite general interest and trigger future searches for life in the Universe. The status of the extra-solar planets field--in particular with respect to very-low-mass planets--will be discussed and an outlook on the search for Earth twins will be given in this paper.     

Centrifuges and Their Application for Biological Experiments in Space

The need for an in-orbit 1×g control originated from the fact that Space radiation or other environmental factors of Space flight could not be excluded as cause for the effects on biological systems that were mainly interpreted as effects of the weightlessness environment. Indeed, in many experiments the 1×g reference centrifuge on board revealed the same data as the 1×g controls on ground, proving the lack of gravity was causing the results. In other cases, the reference centrifuge data were intermediate or clearly different to the ground data which was either due to interrupted 1×g conditions on board or to other, sometimes not well understood factors. This triggered also the development of sophisticated hardware allowing the start, i.e. the transition from 1×g to 0×g, or the termination of the experiment without stopping the centrifuge. Recently developed facilities provide also a complete life support system on the centrifuge rotor. Besides the in-flight 1×g control, acceleration experiments required a centrifuge for determination of threshold values in orbit.     

Experiences from a French-German project - on the integration of pupils in an actual space experiment

The German-French biological experiment AQUARIUS-XENO-PUS which flew on the French Soyuz taxi flight Andromède to the International Space Station ISS was extended by an outreach project. Pupils of class 10 to 12, age 16 to 18 years from Ulm/Germany and Tomblaine-Nancy/France were involved in this space experiment. They recorded swimming behavior of Xenopus laevis tadpoles by video. They used this as the 1gground control for similar observations in microgravity exposed tadpoles on the International Space Station, ISS. The pupils were instructed to perform all experimental steps following the protocol of the video recordings on ISS which were done by the French cosmonaut Claudie Haigneré. After the flight, they evaluated swimming activity of both ground controls and space animals using parameters such as type, velocity and acceleration of swimming, or the distribution patterns of tadpoles within the miniaquaria. The pupil project included theoretical components to introduce them to the field of gravitational biology. Nancy pupils established a homepage (www.xenope.com) about background and aim of their scientific project while Ulm pupils received an extended theoretical and practical education about gravity effects on biological systems, what gravity means for life on Earth, and about hardware used for biological research in Space. A feature of the project was the exchange of ideas between all pupils by internet and meetings which took place in Ulm (June 2001), Nancy (February 2002) and Paris (May 2002). Selected pupils presented the work at international conferences on Life Science Research in Space. The project lasted about 18 months; only 1 of 20 participants left the project after 6 months. - We consider our approach as a successful way to include high school students in space experiments on a cheap cost level and to bring the ideas of gravitational biology into curricula of European schools. The project also showed that personal engagement from the teachers and scientists as well as from the supporting agency staff is a prerequisite for the success of co-operations between school and university.     

A method of human reliability analysis and quantification for space missions based on a Bayesian network and the cognitive reliability and error analysis method

Analyses of human reliability during manned spaceflight are crucial because human error can easily arise in the extreme environment of space and may pose a great potential risk to the mission. Although various approaches exist for human reliability analysis (HRA), all these approaches are based on human behavior on the ground. Thus, to appropriately analyze human reliability during spaceflight, this paper proposes a space‐based HRA method of quantifying the human error probability (HEP) for space missions. Instead of ground‐based performance shaping factors (PSFs), this study addresses PSFs specific to the space environment, and a corresponding evaluation system is integrated into the proposed approach to fully consider space mission characteristics. A Bayesian network is constructed based on the cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM) to model these space‐based PSFs and their dependencies. By incorporating the Bayesian network, the proposed approach transforms the HEP estimation procedure into a probabilistic calculation, thereby overcoming the shortcomings of traditional HRA methods in addressing the uncertainty of the complex space environment. More importantly, by acquiring more information, the HEP estimates can be dynamically updated by means of this probabilistic calculation. By studying 2 examples and evaluating the HEPs for an International Space Station ingress procedure, the feasibility and superiority of the developed approach are validated both mathematically and in a practical scenario.     

The 2.5 s Microgravity Drop Tower at National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD), Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Space missions involving humans require a better understanding of various phenomena happening in space environments. A number of experiments need to be conducted in microgravity for addressing various issues encompassing safety (primarily fire) and better understanding of fluid and material behaviour. Of the various methods used for obtaining microgravity conditions, drop towers offer ground based microgravity platform. They provide a cost effective platform for doing short duration, repeatable, high quality microgravity experiments. This paper describes key factors that influence the design of a drop tower. The salient features of 2.5 s microgravity tower set up at National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD), IIT Madras (IITM) are discussed. Primary features of the three critical elements, namely the drop capsule, the release unit and the decelerator unit are described along with review of these elements in existing drop towers. The IITM drop tower operates in ambient atmospheric conditions to minimise the cost of operation. In order to achieve good quality microgravity levels, a dual capsule configuration is adopted. The shape of the outer capsule is arrived at by detailed transient computational fluid dynamic analysis of the drag shield under free fall condition over the drop height. A pneumatic mechanism is used for capsule release and brought to rest at the end of fall in a carefully designed decelerator unit. The decelerator unit consists of an airbag with controlled air outflow for smooth deceleration.     

First Middle East Aircraft Parabolic Flights for ISU Participant Experiments

Aircraft parabolic flights are widely used throughout the world to create microgravity environment for scientific and technology research, experiment rehearsal for space missions, and for astronaut training before space flights. As part of the Space Studies Program 2016 of the International Space University summer session at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, a series of aircraft parabolic flights were organized with a glider in support of departmental activities on ‘Artificial and Micro-gravity’ within the Space Sciences Department. Five flights were organized with manoeuvres including several parabolas with 5 to 6 s of weightlessness, bank turns with acceleration up to 2 g and disorientation inducing manoeuvres. Four demonstration experiments and two experiments proposed by SSP16 participants were performed during the flights by on board operators. This paper reports on the microgravity experiments conducted during these parabolic flights, the first conducted in the Middle East for science and pedagogical experiments.     

Variable narrow-band transmission filters for spectrometry from space. 2. Fabrication process

The optical components described here are variable narrow-band transmission filters, where the transmittance peak varies with the position along the surface of the filter itself. They allow the construction of ultracompact and low-weight spectrometers for space applications. The theoretical behavior of graded filters has been already investigated by the authors, for imaging spectrometry of the Earth surface. The application of graded filters to miniaturized instruments for planetary missions (Mercury) is considered. Experimental results on the fabrication of small-dimension variable transmission filters operating over a wide spectrum, from visible to near infrared, are reported.